"Good stories often introduce the marvelous or supernatural, and nothing about Story has been so often misunderstood as this." - C.S. Lewis

Thursday, November 8, 2012

We're Bringing Back This Blog

As a resident of a battleground state, I've been trapped in the maw of electoral politics this year -- but now that the election is over, I am blessedly free of that time consuming commitment and can now get back to the business of loving on some genre fiction. What say you? Will you join me?

Art – real art, done right – transcends time, space and the mere mortal clay that created it. I don’t think Shakespeare had a libertarian bone in his body (Kit Marlowe might have. Stop giggling. Yes, I used the word bone. NO I don’t meant that. Juveniles!), but I can be moved and transported out of myself by his plays. Jane Austen was, I’m sure, a good monarchist. She surely believed in a class system, but why in heck’s name should that stop me enjoying her books? Agatha Christie had some shockingly obtuse political statements in her thrillers, but I still re-read her mysteries every year. Why shouldn’t I? ART ISN’T THE PERSON.

It’s perfectly possible, when an art piece touches you deeply, to find meaning in art that is sometimes the opposite of what the author meant. I know I have communist fans who adore Darkship Thieves. Fine. I’ve released the art (I’m never sure I produce that, of course!) into the world, and now it lives in other people’s minds. I can’t stop it.

And ALL the libertarian fans of Firefly and Serenity know that Joss Whedon is, as the offended commenter would say, “quite liberal.” So? They see another meaning in the art.

Exactly. Matt and I are well aware that people like Gene Roddenberry, Joss Whedon, and J. Michael Straczynski were/are flaming lefties. It doesn't matter. In the end, they can't control how we are touched by their creations. If the art is of a high enough quality, truth has a tendency to slip in despite the author's best efforts. Thus, an atheist like JMS can write works that are steeped in Christian imagery, and the leftists behind Star Trek can accidentally pen episodes that argue for a muscular, martial response to evil.

This blog is here to say to the leftists and "anti-ists" in fandom that, hey, they don't own the things we love. And right now, I'm ready to get back to pursuing that mission. Onward!